Fedde dominates, Vaughn explodes, and the White Sox balance the scales

Vaughn hits two dingers and scored every run. Fedde embarrasses his former team. The South Siders didn’t suck

Damn, I love everything about baseball. On the right day, at the right field, a baseball game can be downright magical. A warm spring night, the lights beaming down on a perfectly curated Roger Bossard lawn that amateur sodfathers only dream about. The smell of grilled onions, Chicago style, wafting from the 100-level corridors. The crack of the bat on the ball. The beer vendors yelling in their gruff voices over the cheers, jeers, and your dad saying “fucking idiot ump” under his breath because there are kids nearby.

The walk-up songs, the fireworks, and being in the open air in a dynamic third space where you can lose yourself in your senses, where there’s so much going on that your brain forgets to pay attention to the chatter inside your head. It grounds you, presenting you the opportunity to take it all in.

For many White Sox fans, just being in the neighborhood grants them feelings of joy, as the area around the field has imprinted deeply into their beings with memories of special times. Tailgating, or even just taking the long walk from the lots to the stadium is a personal pilgrimage, as you meander past the 2005 World Series monument, maybe stopping to find your brick. The excitement and promise before the first pitch, electrifying the air with hope, and the sound of our friend Gene Honda guiding us through the entire game from start to finish, a voice so familiar that we feel we know him, tells us we’re home.

Also, Irish nacho helmet.

The main story of the 2024 White Sox season has been how difficult the organization has made it for fans to love this game, but we must refuse to allow the front office fools from robbing us of a thing that gives us joy. Baseball is a sport we can come back to when we want to escape into a predictable game that’s never supposed to be too serious. We’ve been bludgeoned over the head repeatedly by questionable front office news, abominable signings, and shameful requisitioning of funds by a monocle-wearing grifter. Billionaire Jerry Reinsdorf asking for free money from taxpayers is like Andrew Vaughn asking for blonder hair. Why do you need it? It will only hurt you.

That’s not to say we should all devolve into toxically positive pain-deniers, invalidating the derision we’ve experienced after being forced to witness the organization pretend that domestic abuse survivors aren’t 1 in 3 women or 1 in 4 men. If you can’t enjoy White Sox baseball for that reason, you’re valid.

For now, we were safe in tonight’s second game of the doubleheader, as we had the luxury of watching Erick Fedde throw absolute fire at a competitive Washington Nationals team, who were sitting at .500 before the White Sox pushed them under the line.

After a long day and a White Sox loss for the first game in the doubleheader, the South Siders needed the second win to avoid reclamation by the cycle of loss that’s entombed them this season. I was so bored during the first game that I subjected myself to the one-hour challenge, an exercise where you write and record a song in an hour’s time, something I’ve done for South Side Sox in the past. I have to bury it in this game coverage, because the White Sox didn’t suck today.

I should stop doing these one-hour challenges when I have throat issues.

Fedde went seven full innings, giving up three hits and no earned runs with six strikeouts. It was his first time facing his former team, and the White Sox starter couldn’t have had a better outing. Now 4-0 at home, Fedde is showing us that he could be the White Sox ace; with his huge arsenal of pitches and his command over them, a win from him isn’t that big of a surprise.

What is a surprise is the White Sox not having an offensive meltdown after the loss in the opener. For this second match, Korey Lee was replaced with Martín Maldonado, Bryan Ramos didn’t play and is now on the day-to-day IL with quad tightness, and the White Sox were dealing with two losses in a row. Despite those unfavorable conditions, the South Siders started swinging.

The third inning saw Rafael Ortega with his first White Sox hit — and then he stole second and took third on a wild pitch that was ball four to Tommy Pham. Then, it happened.

Andrew Vaughn hit his second home run of the year, after hitting his first on Friday to end a prolonged dinger drought, making it 3-0 for the White Sox.

As the pendulum inevitably swings back, Ortega whiffed on a line drive in the fourth, blindly scooping at the air and making us imagine him in his Cubs uniform. No one scored as a result, but all I’m saying is we’ve got our eye on you, Ortega.

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

Speaking of hard liners, Pham was coming in hot tonight, and more than once. In the sixth, Pham made an astonishing line drive scoop in center to end the inning, and smacked a single just moments later. In the very next inning, Pham repeated this defensive feat, extending his glove while clearly unable to see the ball, instinctually putting his body in the right place and making the catch.

With Fedde’s seven stellar innings and a struggling Nationals offense, the game was in the bag for the South Siders. But Vaughn wasn’t done.

After spending all season like a sleeping cicada nymph, Vaughn has finally taken enough oxygen from his mud chimney and emerged, shedding his now-useless exoskeleton and coming out to mate, and hopefully staying alive for the rest of the season. Topical, White Sox friends. Disgustingly topical and apt. You’ll see, and soon.

Kopech made every White Sox fan’s butthole clench when he came out without control in the ninth. He even cleated the mound in the middle of a windup and had to toss the ball away for a balk, serving back-to-back walks, followed by a wild pitch. We were all nerves until tomato boy came in with this magnificent diving catch to end the game.

Get ready for a day game tomorrow, when the White Sox try to take the series. Let’s keep this ball rolling and keep loving baseball.

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Futility Watch

White Sox 2024 Record 13-30, tied for the second-worst 43-game start in White Sox history (a half-game behind the 1948 White Sox) and tied for the 60th-worst start in MLB history
White Sox 2024 Run Differential -89, tied for the 37th-worst 43-game start in MLB history
White Sox 2024 Season Record Pace 49-113 (.302)
Race to the Worst “Modern” 162-Game Record (2003 Tigers, 43-119) 6 games behind
Race to the Worst “Modern” Record in a 162-Game Season (1962 Mets, 40-120) 8 games behind
Race to the Most White Sox Losses (1970, 106) 7 games ahead
Race to the Worst White Sox Record (1932, 52-109-1*) 3 1⁄2 games ahead
Race to the Worst American League Record (1916 A’s, 38-124*) 11 games behind
Race to the Worst MLB Record (1899 Spiders, 21-141*) 28 games behind
*record adjusted to a 162-game season

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